The Community Open Resource Exchange project (C.O.R.E.) is a highly regarded major community mod for AoD. It’s main aim is to recreate the period from 1936 to 1953 in even greater detail with even greater historical accuracy, without changing the central game-play (e.g. no extra micromanagement). Almost everything in the game has been changed dramatically or tweaked, from unit types and technology trees to the infrastructure and resources found in each province. The ultimate goal of C.O.R.E. is making the game more of a historical simulation rather than a game, and to have the player relive the diplomatic challenges of the late 30's as much as possible. It covers both historic and ahistorical plausible events and event outcomes, and will by and large follow history without becoming predictable.
Some highlights of C.O.R.E. are:
Some highlights of C.O.R.E. are:
- Separate six and nine battalion division organisation for infantry and armor, reflecting historical organisations at the time. Each country starts with one or the other (the UK with nine battalion, for example, and Italy with six battalion).
- Provinces now consume as well as produce resources, to reflect civilian consumption. This is only really a factor in densely populated areas. Resources are generally more scarce.
- The technology trees have been completely revamped, pretty much to the point of unrecognizability. Special attention has been placed on the industrial technology tree, with economic recovery from the Great Depression featuring heavily in the early years. There is also a lot more dependency between the industrial tree, doctrine trees and the military wing trees (air force, army and navy). Concepts such as foreign purchase or domestic production of certain key industries is represented.
- All nations have their strengths and weaknesses regarding the tech tree, though some improved tech teams may become available if the player spends enough researching that field (like a carrier tech team for Germany or Italy).
- There are now five levels of industrialization with which a nation can start: subsistence economy, agriculturally-based economy, pre-industrial economy, semi-industrialized economy and fully industrialized. Changing the level of industrialization is impossible, as this did not happen in real life as well.
- The secret weapons tech tree especially has seen a lot of work. It’s now much more of a tree in its own right, rather than a collection of odds and ends. All nuclear and rocketry technology is now found here, along with advanced electronics, jet age technology and other things.
- There are now many more tech teams available, but many of those are made available by events as the game progresses. Technology specializations have also undergone some work (such as the new logistics specialization).
- Reserve divisions replace vanilla AoD’s militia divisions. These reserves represent ordinary, if slightly weaker, infantry, but without much of the heavy equipment a standard, industrialized infantry division would have. They now play a much more important part in the game, forming the backbone of many nations’ armed forces.
- Manpower is limited until mobilization happens. A prime example is the USA, which is highly limited in manpower. Which is utterly historical, as the historical focus of the USA pre-war was navy, navy, navy, navy, navy, navy, airforce and navy.
- The C.O.R.E. travel guide will add customized province pictures, and is optional.
- The mod is comes in the form of a basic installer and an additional graphics pack (the latter containing tech images, country-specific models and such).
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